Hanging Matter

by David Donachie

  Now, as he made his way towards the library, trailing Pender in his wake, he regretted not including Arthur in his plans; it was something he’d avoided, partly out of pique, but also to spare himself another lecture on his supposed irresponsibility. Harry had to get to London, to stop James if possible, to assist him in some way if he couldn’t. Nothing counted for more than that, not even the idea of waylaying Trench. But to ignore this letter from Temple would negate all his previous ideas of the best way to tackle the murderous swine. Only at sea, in a well-manned ship, could Harry guarantee himself an advantage. And he had no intention of relying on anyone but himself. As for Temple and his Deal smugglers, since their leader was plainly terrified of Trench, and his recent second-in-command, Quested, had already shown himself willing to be suborned, he placed no reliance in any support which would come from that quarter.

  Numbers were the key. He had to overwhelm Trench with a stronger crew. And they had to be men willing to fight. Those in the barn were of that stripe, but they were too few for the task at hand. He had hoped to man his ship from the men who hung around Deal, and given even a few days with him he was sure he could impart some degree of fighting spirit.

  “Shut the door, Pender,” he said as he entered the room.

  His servant did as he was asked, and as usual waited till his captain said something before offering either a question or an opinion. The contents of Temple’s letter provided meat for both.

  “As you know, Captain, I’m no great shakes in the article of ships. But if this here barky which you’ve had your eye on is anything like you’ve described it to me, a sod like Trench wouldn’t come within ten miles of it.”

  Harry smiled, taking the worried look off his face and replacing it with a gleam of anticipation. “On a dark night, with the ship well disguised to look like a merchantman? He’ll come after us all right, especially if it’s loaded to the gunwales with his contraband.”

  But Pender wasn’t convinced, which was made obvious by the frown on his normally cheerful face. “If as you say, it’s a matter of more men, why bother with a disguise?”

  “Because you’re right, man,” replied Harry, with a trace of asperity. “If we don’t disguise a ship like that, he’ll take one look at her gunports and head for safety.”

  “This ship ain’t ready?” asked Pender stubbornly, refusing to be cowed by his captain’s display of impatience.

  “I’ve told you, I have only my brother’s word for that. And when it comes to being no great shakes in the article of ships, you lead him by several cables.”

  “Even Mr James would be able to see if it were ready to float.”

  “What are you saying, man?”

  Pender grinned, quite taken with the way Harry was glaring at him. “I’m saying that it don’t make no difference to the present case if it’s not to be ready for six months or one. If you want to take on Trench, right off, you need another ship. And since you’re intent on disguisin’ the barky anyway, you might as well get hold of one that don’t need it.”

  “A merchantman?”

  “That’s right. There’s bound to be a few goin’ in the Downs, with all them ships anchored there.”

  “And men?” asked Harry.

  “Deal is awash with ’em, you know that as well as I do, Captain. Let’s get some on our books, fetch them back here so’s they can mix with your old crew. Then when we have a boat, we can ship them aboard and put to sea without anyone givin’ away what we’re about. I don’t know about you, but I ain’t got much faith in that Temple.”

  “We have to include him, Pender, for we depend on him for information.”

  “Is there any way it could be just him, Captain?”

  Harry slammed the wood panelling with a balled fist. “I’ve got to go to London, Pender. You know why?”

  “I do, your honour. But I can recruit the hands if you leave me here.”

  “And a ship?” asked Harry.

  Pender shrugged, for he could not provide an answer to that.

  “Temple could get one,” said Harry. “No one would question his buying a ship. They would just assume he’d decided to smuggle in a proper merchantman instead of using luggers and pinks.”

  The trap that shot out from the lane took Harry by surprise. He’d been lost in thought, allowing his horse its head, and it was the animal’s shying away from the sudden apparition which first alerted him. By the time he had a firm grip on the reins he was face to face with the driver. Naomi, the hood of her cloak thrown back to expose her fine blonde hair, was hauling on the traces, trying to bring her skittish pony under control. She swung round in an arc, as though she was searching for deliverance from this embarrassing encounter. The lines of concentration and effort were still there when she looked up at Harry. He, at a loss for anything to say, merely raised his hat.

  “How very formal,” she said, after an awkward pause.

  Harry was impressed by the steadyness of the look in her grey eyes. The cold air had reddened her cheeks slightly. But there was no hint of the usual mocking smile that sat so well on her beautiful face. He wanted to smile, to take the stiffness out of his expression. Such proximity to a woman he knew so well, and admired so much, produced an odd sensation. His heart was beating a little faster and the blood coursing through his veins made his skin tingle. But there was also a part him that wanted Naomi to speak, to explain, perhaps even to apologise. That feeling, and the thought of Arthur, dictated the tone of his reply.

  “Perhaps I’m surprised that you reined in your pony. You could have carried straight on.”

  Her frown deepened to an expression he’d seen often enough before. It was the look of a woman to whom no one could condescend. He’d been exposed to it himself in the past, on those occasions when his attitude toward Naomi had been a little too cavalier.

  “It’s a fool who takes things for granted.”

  “I took it for granted that I would be welcome on my return. Clearly I was wrong.”

  That brought a hint of anger to Naomi’s voice, yet to Harry it seemed forced, rather than natural. “If you think you’re due an explanation, Harry Ludlow, you will wait in vain. I run my own life. I’m not any man’s chattel.”

  He felt such an accusation unfounded and was stung into a hasty reply. “I have never thought of you as such, Naomi.”

  “Have you not? You looked, and behaved, very like a man crossed the other night.”

  That too was forced, as though Naomi was determined to keep her dignity. So be it. Having been a little foolish he would have to be the one to bend. He smiled suddenly and pulled his feet from the stirrups, preparing to dismount.

  “I know. And the thought of that affects me deeply. But my pride was sorely dented.”

  There was no corresponding smile from Naomi. In fact her tone became a bit sharper. She flicked the reins to put her pony in motion, just as Harry swung his leg over the horse, leaving him half in and half out of his saddle.

  “Stay aboard your horse, Harry. I’ve no time for your pride. I have more important business to attend to.”

  He sat on the road, watching as the cart disappeared, turning away from the Griffin’s Head, not towards it, along the road that led through Northbourne to Deal.

  By the time Pender got to see Temple in his private chambers Harry was in Canterbury, taking the coach for Rochester, still wondering how he’d so mishandled his chance meeting with Naomi Smith. The Smuggler King was in the process of changing his clothes, discarding his black outfit for a splendid military uniform. He read Harry’s letter in his shirtsleeves, ignoring the servant’s anger at the way he’d been kept waiting.

  “A ship,” he said, looking up. “Who’s going to pay for it?”

  “Captain Ludlow,” said Pender quickly, for this hiccup was something they’d not foreseen. Both men had assumed that Temple, in order to nail Trench, would be happy to help them acquire a ship.

  Temple flicked the letter at him and began to put on his thick red uniform
coat. “It doesn’t say that here, man.”

  Pender knew he didn’t have the kind of stature that would allow him to either browbeat or impose on Temple. Harry Ludlow did, but it was no use crying for what you couldn’t get. His sole advantage was that he’d never spoken in Temple’s presence, even to Harry, so the smuggler had no notion of what he was like or how he stood with his employer. If Temple, to his mind an arrogant man, perceived him as a humble servant, a mere messenger, then that would be the part he’d have to play. He would need a mixture of guile, and that natural disloyalty inherent in hired men, which someone like Temple would take at face value. Pender steeled himself to the kind of grovelling tone which came hard.

  “Typical of the captain, sir, an’ it was ever so. Rush and more rush, with nothing finished proper. He was in a hellfire hurry to get to London, Mr Temple, an’ I dare say he forgot to append that part, but he said to me, clear as day, that he was going to buy the ship hisself.”

  “I smell stinking fish,” said Temple, suspiciously.

  Pender looked cunning, adding a slight look over his shoulder, as though what he was about to say was not to be overheard. “’Tween you and me, he reckons he’ll get his money back on Trench’s brandy and silk, so he won’t want to share ownership.”

  Temple’s eyes narrowed, and his chiselled face became stern. He turned to look in the long pier-glass as he did up his shiny brass buttons. When he finally spoke, it was as if he was talking to himself. “Does he, by damn!”

  “And I reckon ’e’s right, your honour. You should ’ave seen the stuff Bertles had aboard, an’ he was disturbed long before he’d finished his thievin’. That there Trench is shipping his goods in by the million.”

  Temple waved away the absurd exaggeration, but it was clear that he was pondering the situation. He rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. Pender watched him warily, waiting for the seeds he’d sown to increase his doubts. You could almost see the man’s thoughts in his reflection as he admired his outfit: of the profit implicit in taking Trench’s goods; of the possibility that Harry Ludlow, once introduced to the smuggling game, might consider it a profitable way to do business, competing with the Aldington gang … “I shall purchase a ship,” he said suddenly. “I hate to disappoint your master, but the goods he takes will belong to me.”

  “With shares,” said Pender, in a slightly hurt tone.

  Temple gave him a wolfish smile. “Of course. For the master and the crew.”

  Pender coughed loudly. The subject of a crew was not something he wanted to discuss. Temple would want to man any ship he bought with his own sailors, something Harry Ludlow would never tolerate.

  “By the way, your honour, what happened to that cove I clouted with a musket, Cephas Quested?”

  Temple was putting on his belt, a wide buff affair. He turned and looked him square in the eye. But with only the evidence of the previous conversation to go by he made the mistake of talking to Pender as a clever man does to a dolt.

  “Still out cold. You hit him too hard, friend, he may never wake up.”

  “Is he still here, your honour?”

  Temple snapped impatiently, which only increased Pender’s suspicion. “Of course he is, man. He’ll not leave here till he’s answered for his actions to me.”

  Pender left the Hope and Anchor, wondering where Quested was. He might be dead, for Temple had the right, after his batman had betrayed him. But Pious Pender had spent his life smoking out other people’s lies, and given the life he’d led, with the constant fear of a sheriff’s hand, he had a hound’s nose for betrayal. The way Temple had said those words about Quested had made him uneasy.

  “If the bastard ain’t dead,” he said softly to himself, “I hope to God he’s well away from Deal.”

  The four boatmen pulled hard as they weaved their way through the myriad ships which packed the Pool of London. It took skill to cope with the treacherous tides of the Thames, with strong currents running round numerous sandbars making manoeuvring difficult. But these boatmen had been doing it all their lives, and not knowing that Harry had anchored here a dozen times they took care to show him the sights on their way upriver, pointing eagerly as they passed Greenwich and the like, one certain way to turn a silver tip into gold.

  That certainty was sorely dented when their passenger, hitherto silent, curtly commanded them to pull for Blackwall Reach. The shore was lined with dockyards. He scanned the slips for his ship, which was a vessel of some hundred feet in length, and spotted what he was looking for in no time. First the lower masts, almost too big for the hull, stout oak trunks that would have to bear the high upper masts, then the line of gunports, seven a side. But the grace of the design counted for just as much. No other ship on the shoreline had anything to match it. He gave more precise directions, so that the boatmen would pull close by her.

  The ship was in the water, riding high with clean copper showing, her hull complete. It was being fitted out internally, judging by the sounds of hammering and crashing emitted through the open ports. Men were working at the bows and the stern, carving and fixing the exterior decoration. Harry felt that the ship was a lot closer to being finished than the six months quoted to his brother. It all depended on what needed doing between decks. She required her standing rigging, but that was easily achieved, in weeks rather than months, with a crew of his own to assist.

  “Haul away for the Savoy Steps, lads,” said Harry. But he didn’t look at the men. He was gazing at the ship, mentally cautioning himself not to fall for her too easily, lest he pay the shipbuilder more than she was worth. But she was undeniably beautiful, with sleek lines added to formidable firepower. In his mind’s eye he saw her at sea, canvas spread aloft, smoke billowing from her guns, in full chase after fat and profitable prizes. As he turned, his boatmen saw that piratical gleam in his eye, and mistaking its aim, mentally downgraded him to a man who’d be lucky to part with sixpence.

  “The gentleman is well known, Mr Ludlow, and I must say does not enjoy an unblemished reputation.”

  For Benedict Cantwell, normally the most discreet of men, to make such a statement was to damn Lord Farrar more than a hundred vicious oaths from less careful sources. A mere ten years Harry’s senior, he looked much older, with his parchment skin, sharp features, and greying hair. His family had been Admiral Ludlow’s bankers since Harry’s father had a penny to spare. It had swollen to much more than that by the time Harry’s father relinquished the highly profitable West Indies command. Now Benedict, the head of the family concern, was a trusted adviser to the son and heir, though more accustomed to dealing with Lord Drumdryan than he was with his principal.

  “Do we have any reports on his competence with a pistol?” asked Harry.

  “Able, sir, if not more than that,” said Cantwell, examining the report he had before him. “He has been out on many occasions, mostly in disputes over gaming, and has caused great distress with wounds that have on two occasions led to a death.”

  His thin finger, with an almost flesh-coloured nail, searched along the lines of the report Harry had requested, seeking the rest of the information. “Ah! here we are. ‘Though it must be said, of late, his want of sobriety has interfered with his aim.”’ Cantwell looked up from his papers, his lips pursed in distaste. “He is termed a rake, sir, though his sins tend to be bets or bottles, rather than beds.”

  If the banker, who was now smiling thinly at his own alliteration, wondered why Harry Ludlow, whose nose seemed somewhat swollen, wanted this information, he didn’t ask. Perhaps he already knew, for James had said that the news of the duel had travelled. Given the furore that James’s affair with the man’s wife had caused two years before, it was likely that these latest happenings were common knowledge.

  “Is he a creature of habit?”

  Cantwell looked at his report again. “He is, if you can term recurring sin such a thing, Mr Ludlow. Lord Farrar is a denizen of St James’s, well known in all the clubs, and is refused entry at White’s.
His most common haunt is Brook’s, since the stakes at the tables there tend to be higher than those elsewhere.”

  Harry stood up, obviously preparing to leave, though ready enough to thank Benedict Cantwell for his work. The banker looked shocked.

  “You are not leaving yet, sir, surely?”

  “I did intend to, Mr Cantwell.”

  “But we have things to discuss, sir.”

  It was now Harry’s turn to be surprised. He sat down abruptly, feeling like a child who’d just been reprimanded. “Have we? I looked over the accounts at Cheyne Court, and I have to say that everything seemed to be in perfect order. More than perfect, in fact. I was amazed at the increase in the value of the family stocks.”

  “That is the past, Mr Ludlow. We need to speak of the future,” said Cantwell, managing to adopt so doom-laden a tone that Harry wondered if the future existed.

  “You are aware that I leave all these matters in the capable hands of Lord Drumdryan.”

  “Of course,” said Cantwell, his thin eyebrows arched. “But there are some burdens that should not be placed on intermediaries. The war progresses indifferently, sir. The government has chosen to follow several different strategies in the hope of success. The simplest intelligence knows this to be folly. Men have been sent to Flanders, as well as the West Indies, with similar results, though yellow jack has killed off more in the Caribbean than enemy action. Admiral Hood has been pitched out of Toulon and now there is talk of a landing somewhere near the mouth of the Loire River.”